Rune Factory

DearSweetAru

DearSweetAru

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Nov 19, 2014
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Please, oh please, tell me there is someone else into this game! I've beaten the third one and am progressing through the fourth one. I absolutely love those games. Originally I avidly played Harvest Moon, but after a friend gave me 3 I was immediately hooked.

The downfall has just been I lack anyone to blab about it to. That friend really doesn't play it much, especially not enough to talk about it.

Does anyone on here play any of them? What do you think? Have a favorite?
 
Admittedly the times I've played Harvest Moon, I failed epically - but this looks interesting. Graphics look pretty good. I'll play it tonight and see how it goes, I've got all three - hopefully this I can play and not fail. Seems like a good game, I just hope the in-game tutorial is easy enough (if there's a tutorial.)
Do any of the Harvest Moon games affect this one? I read it's a spin-off.
 
They do not! :p Well, at least 3 and 4 don't. I haven't gotten my hands on 1 or 2 yet, but I'm definitely planning on it.

Like Harvest Moon their own characters do intertwine. Raven from 3 pops up and talks about stuff from that game in 4. It's not AS much as Harvest Moon. More like the later games where certain characters are from specific towns.

What appealed to me was the combat system, leveling, and batting all the various monsters. It feels a lot more interactive than Harvest Moon (which I feel like I'm betraying). Then the variety of character races and the lore. They really keep to their lore throughout the games and others get mentioned, but you don't have to play them in order to get it. You can game any game from the series and be fine. Well, with 3 and 4. I haven't researched the other ones yet, so those are the only two I can really comment on.
 
Phew! I haven't gotten 4 yet, I've started playing no.1 - admittedly somewhat lost still (not sure how to mine, took a minute to figure out how to fish and had my backside handed to me the first time I went into Carmite Cave) but I'm having fun. I was wondering why I wasn't earning much money, then harvested strawberries and something else and baam - I had 6k in the bank (figuratively.)
I'll have to get Harvest Moon as well. When do character races come into play with RF? Admittedly I've read tidbits of the lore in the library but other than that, I haven't noticed much of the lore xD (maybe I'm jjst not paying enough attention.) Definitely liking the game though once I got into the rhythm of watering daily - I think my mistake with HM was not paying attention to what the characters was saying. I've got into the rhythm (sorta) of fighting, mostly hack-and-slash then run for my life since I'm only level 2 at the moment so I've died/restarted a few times. I died the first day it rained, then when I loaded up again, the day had changed to sunny. Thirteen days in, it finally rained.
Carmite Cave definitely has knocked my arrogance down a fair few pegs, I love the idea of being able to grow crops in the caves so if it's not the season you want, you can just waltz in there and grow the crops you want.
 
I've played through the first one a few times and liked it. Sadly, I have only been able to dable with two and three since I don't have the games. Number four whispers to me like a siren song... play me.. plant things and raise monsters.. you know you want to... I'm like Monster rancher except you don't need CDs and you can actually do more ranching than just watch monsters fight.
 
Well, I'm not 100% certain when races come into play chronologically. #3 focuses on these two villages (a human one with some elves and a demon one) in which the goal is to try and unite them. Then in #4 the races are intermixed all over the place and no one bats an eye. #1&2 I have yet to get my hands on, so I'm not sure what happens in those ones. I try to keep the surprise by not looking it up lol but I fully intend on buying them once I get the chance to.

If the demon race was supposed to be some HUGE deal, then it might be that you only see humans (and maybe elves) until that point. I could very well be horrendously wrong on that note.

I love not being limited by seasons for crops. It got frustrating having to hoard seeds and remember to plant them in time and cry if they wilted thanks to a new season.
 
#1 is just a guy who wakes up in a town and gets given a farm pretty much, so far it's only humans (and monsters, duh.) I don't have #4 but I've got 1 through 3 and plan to play them in order. The only thing that sucks is you get your ass handed to you so many times against the monsters til you level up and get the friendship glove.
 
Oh gosh. A friendship glove? Sounds like the first one was slowly branching away from Harvest Moon and seeing how much they could dip their toes into a fantasy version. 3 and 4 you just have to give the monsters items like you would to any of the villagers until a heart pops up over their head. If you are a higher level than them then you have a significantly better chance at getting them.

Varying on what you use monsters for truly effects how useful one is. A lot of the monsters don't produce items for you. The ones that look like farm animals do, but there are some not so obvious ones that make items as well. Some of the monsters who don't produce anything can be better in combat. However, I enjoy having people in my party in 4.

It sounds like they gradually work up to a variety of races then. As said, 3 was all about uniting demons and humans. 4 no one thought anything of it concerning races. This makes me wanna play the other games more! xD lol
 
Please, I own every Harvest Moon (and spin off) that has ever come out. You have a place to blab here (even did a retro podcast on it as well [plug plug]) I am always ready to talk about farming.

I am not always a huge fan of some of the choices in Rune Factory simply because they like to stretch a long game out into something that you need to toss every other video game you own away to finish. In the first one you need to sink a couple hundred hours into it to advance the cooking stuff, and that wasn't even core to the game.

I kind of also didn't like the monster raising system. I don't know, it felt weird to capture a monster and milk it or get eggs from it. I liked farming and fighting the monsters (mostly in 4) but when it got to the point that I needed to start maintaining friendships with monsters to maintain my fields I lost focus. It is too bad on levels because it is the last of that series that will ever come out (studio went under [not core harvest moon team]) and it finally felt like they were figuring out the important stuff in the game. 4 hit a balance that the other ones didn't seem to have with what should be story and what should be pointless busy work (a core function of the game).

You want to talk about odd Harvest Moon games, we can talk about the future one Innocent Life; a game only released on the PSP. That shit was promising and fucking stupid.
 
o_O Harvest Moon on PSP. Damn, that's weird. Honestly? The monster raising isn't much weirder than Pokémon. Come on Gillman, you have to admit that at least. The farming from the monsters themselves is a bit weird, but raising monsters/having them work for you is if people are just lazy/stupid enough to waste their RP.
I just got a table/shelf in RF1 because I can't do the money cheat with the shell, and I was short like 300g to get the Seedmaker so I have to wait again for that. I'm now level 12, combat's become easier - but mostly it's the friendship points is the annoying part. You shouldn't have to wait 3 hours to talk to every person, plus run to the ruins to talk to whatsherface just to get 1 point. The dating sim part of it has gotten boring very quick, I don't mind the farming/monster smashing - I got a longsword from a monster chest which isn't even sold in Leo's shop - so that was cool. It's got a combo of 3 so I'm smashing my way through Carmite Cave slowly.

It's one of those casual play games for me, there's no pressure because it's not real-time and you don't have to constantly play. The annoying thing is the shipping box and that they don't segregate future/possible quest items from everything else (I sold the Rollabouti wine in no.1 on my first go without knowing what it was - it's the third time I've restarted the game and I know not to pick it up yet.)
 
My friend gave me Rune Factory 4 as a birthday gift! I think the art and the series is adorable, but my only wish is that the art could make the characters look a little older. I'm just very picky on the art for games, that's all. Sometimes, I feel really overwhelmed whether it comes to tending to my farm or crafting new weapons. I want to do so much that I just end up doing something entirely different. The characters are very likeable in RF4, and I like to spend a lot of time getting gifts or food for them. I haven't played this game in a while now, but after I saw this thread, I really wish I could play it right now. Too bad school's in the way. :(
 
I wish the art was better too, especially #1. The kids look like kids but the teenagers/twenty-somethings don't look their age. The actual 3d versions of the characters look good, apart from the guy you play - his just looks bad. Most of the 2D artwork for the females in #1 looks awesome, but the guys? They kinda failed on that front. Neumann looks like an old man in his seventies or eighties.
 
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Purrdy said:
I wish the art was better too, especially #1. The kids look like kids but the teenagers/twenty-somethings don't look their age. The actual 3d versions of the characters look good, apart from the guy you play - his just looks bad. Most of the 2D artwork for the females in #1 looks awesome, but the guys? They kinda failed on that front. Neumann looks like an old man in his seventies or eighties.
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This is so true. The teens seriously don't look their age. The 3D renders are nice, but the actual artwork for the characters leave a lot to be desired. In Rune Factory, most of the girls look decent, but the guys can look strange I'm being really shallow when I saw this, but if I spend my money on a game that has a marriage feature, there should at least be good looking characters for both genders!
 
I started #1 for the third time, and contrary to what some people said in walkthroughs - I made 2k easiky on the first day. A tip (even though you guys probably know already), fish at Kasimir Ruins. I made at least 100g per fish, yes you get some junk but it adds up - I don't know if my rom is modded or not, but contrary to the walkthrough I read, the instructions for greenifier were pretty clear.
FP/LP take a while, but the dating sim part doesn't interest me that much. I'm going to start on the second and third game sometime, just to see the difference.
I'll give #1 one thing - the clip you see at the beginning of the game is pretty good. It could work as an anime in my opinion.
 
The Rune Factory series is one of my all-time favorite sets of games and Rune Factory 4 and Frontier are definitely the best ones in my opinion. I've played and own them all (Even the non-DS/3DS ones) though and they're all absolutely amazing. The combat was never overly amazing and the farming life aspects were never much more then what Harvest Moon games had to offer, but there's something amazing about the entire delivery.

I just really hope NeverlandCo pushes on through their bankruptcy they filed or someone reputable picks up the license if they can't. It's a shame that most people don't know that Rune Factory 4 MIGHT be their last game despite it being their most successful and it selling far, far better then they expected. A Rune Factory 5 was even greenlit immediately after the success of 4 but now what's going to happen from here on out with the series is kind of in limbo.
 
I love Rune Factory! I am currently playing 4 but have played all of the others that were released for the DS. I am really liking the complexity of this game, the map is huge! I decided to play RF4 on easy since I had not played one for a while and wanted to get used to it, but it is way too easy, good thing you can change the difficulty settings.

They did such an amazing job with this addition to the RF family I really hope they can make another one, it's been a long time since a game like this has been able to keep me on the hook the whole time without losing interest.
 
I didn't even know about that, Kitouski.
Squee for bigger maps! And difficulty settings. It would be good on PC I think as well. The worst thing about the third game is you can't do the touch screen function (where you could touch nine squares and it would put them in the pack automatically) that was in the first game. It may come in later, I haven't gotten far in the third game.
 
Another Harvest Moon fan here :D unfortunately I've been out of the loop for a few years now. The last game I played under Rune Factory was A Fantasy Harvest Moon. Come to think of it, I didn't get to finish every ending.
 
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